Title: I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
Genre: Comedy/ Romance
Cast: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Jessica Biel, …
Director: Dennis Dugan
Release: (2007)
Um, … am I the only one who sees where he’s going with all this? I mean, I wouldn’t think that I could possibly be the only one who sees where this is heading, but since I haven’t heard anyone else mention it I just have to ask: doesn’t anyone else see where Adam Sandler is going here? No one. That’s your story. That’s what you expect me to believe. Ok, let’s just step back and take a look at the big picture here for a minute:
1995: Billy Madison – Adam Sandler steps onto the scene with a low-brow, high-comedy classic that takes dead aim at spoiled, lazy rich kids (easy target, sure, but a safe way to start bringing people into the fold.) Still though, even now he begins testing the water carefully with a few playful jabs at the slightly more sympathetic kids and teachers in the movie.
1996: Happy Gilmore – Sandler is still careful to have his own, generally unsympathetic or vulnerable, character take the brunt of the abuse but sends up a few more test flares with a couple of sucker punches tossed out at amputees and the elderly.
1998: The Waterboy – With the preliminary results for his formula (more on this later) showing great promise, Sandler commits to his first full-scale test. In his first release without the safety on (i.e. without an arrogant jerk main character as the main focus of the abuse to justify the collateral abuse of more sympathetic characters), he takes dead-aim at the mentally handicapped and peppers in a few good shots at jocks, southerners, and the home-schooled just to really see where he’s at so far. Results are somewhat mixed, but still positive: not quite as much adulation as the previous tests but still no significant blowback. Overall, very good news considering the inherent risk of “going live” for the first time.
1999: Big Daddy – Knowing not to get too greedy too soon, Sandler dials it back just a little but still keeps everyone moving in the right direction with a lightweight satire of single mothers, deadbeat dads and unwanted kids.
2000: Little Nicky – Sandler gets a little cocky, reels back and catches the devil flush with a full-on haymaker. Initial results again seem to be positive, though some eventual repercussions for this one may still be pending.
2002: Eight Crazy Nights – On the advice of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Sandler tests the hypothesis that you can make fun of anyone and anything in any way you want as long as you do it in cartoon form. Still not being totally certain about this, and not wanting to destroy all the work towards his goal that he’s done so far if anything goes wrong, he decides to test the hypothesis by making fun of a religion but play it somewhat safe by just attacking his own. Despite promising results, Sandler decides it’s just not as fun to have to hide behind animation and decides to return to what he knows.
2002: Mr. Deeds – As part of Sandler’s twenty-year chess game with America, he makes a carefully plotted move that quietly begins to establish him in the “remakes” game. Though its significance remains largely unnoticed even to this day, history one day will regard this as the shrewdest example of his calculating nature.
2003: Anger Management – Still not above tweaking his formula at this stage to ensure success down the road, Sandler experiments with the idea of using a gigantic star to diffuse some of the focus on the content and incorporates Jack Nicholson in a story that makes fun of people trying to get help for their problems through counseling and support groups, as well as the doctors trying to help them. Results indicate that public reaction to content is not significantly different enough from previous efforts to justify the additional cost in salary of this approach.
2004 – 50 First Dates: Sandler reconfirms original formula with a little throwaway piece making fun of amnesia victims and Hawaiians.
2005 – The Longest Yard: Sandler turns up the visibility another notch on his penchant for updating classic movies with edgier remakes. With the end game now coming into sight over the horizon, he makes the move here to merge the two streams he has been cultivating for a few years now by infusing the remake with a healthy dose of the kind of politically incorrect racial and sexual orientation humor that he’s been gradually desensitizing audiences to in his other movies since the beginning now.
Which brings us up to 2007’s I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. Since technically this is the movie I’m actually supposed to be reviewing here, I’ll deviate from the history lesson for a moment to actually do that. But keep in mind what I’ve just showed you as you think about this movie, and if you still don’t see where all of this is headed when all is said and done, well, you probably deserve what you’re going to get.
Chuck and Larry stars Adam Sandler (Chuck) and Kevin James (Larry) as two New York City firemen who find themselves in a pinch after a bureaucratic loophole leaves single-dad Larry unable to have his life insurance benefits transferred to his kids after his wife passes away. After a close call on the job reminds him that he can’t afford to wait for the issue to be resolved on the city’s schedule, he convinces best friend and confirmed bachelor Chuck to sign on to a civil union with him so that Chuck can receive the benefits and take care of Larry’s kids should anything happen to him on the job. Chuck reluctantly agrees to go through with it on paper, but when a suspicious state fraud investigator (Steve Buscemi) begins to turn up the heat on them, Chuck and Larry have to continue upping the ante and live more and more openly as a gay couple to avoid losing their jobs and going to jail on an insurance fraud rap.
As a pure comedy, Chuck and Larry is what it is. Steadily amusing, occasionally pretty funny, ultimately wrapped up with an everybody-is-redeemed bow on top. But as a progressive step towards Sandler’s ultimate goal, it is an important landmark. I mentioned earlier that Sandler has a formula which he has been tinkering with here and there with every movie (trying things like the big stars, the sympathetic vs. unsympathetic main character, the animation, etc.). These are all understandable adjustments to try, as he cannot be too careful before attempting his ultimate goal, but at its core the formula has remained virtually unchanged since the beginning. And in this day and age of unreasonable, panicky, reactionary political correctness - the kind that claimed so many innocent careers at CBS and MSNBC in the infamous Nappy-Headed Holocaust of 2007 – the effectiveness of such a simple little formula is really quite brilliant to consider.
